Remember that Onion article about Manson going door to door trying to shock parents?
At this point he is literally on his knees begging to be seen as transgressive.
I'm not so cynical that I can't see that Manson was an incredible rock star for a decade who really did put on amazing shows and managed to make some prolific music, I think people who can't see that are out of touch with music.
Where Manson's talent lay was in branding and knowing who to work with. He was never a musician. Years of being a junkie eroded his business sense and well here we are.
I always saw Marilyn Manson as taking pages from the David Bowie playbook: craft an image, attach a sound to it, try to be "provocative" and "challenging."
The difference is, David Bowie at least overhauled his image and sound every few years. Marilyn Manson is Marge Simpson altering that Chanel suit just enough that the country club will think it's new.
The third bassist now plays guitar and Manson is the only member left from the 90's. This is a cover band. And one that clearly doesn't even care anymore.
This is like a really, really commercial version of when Sun City Girls let Harmony Korine play with them a few times, except in that case the band was the cool half of the equation.
I should have done something like this with my life. Make super simple, angsty music, have a ridiculous image and angsty lyrics that speak to angst ridden teenagers and 20 something goths who hang out at crappy clubs and practice mainstream Wicca or Laveyan Satanism because deistic Satanism is "less intelligent." I would get laid all the time by girls with really loose morals and get wet for gawfic shit and hang out with a celebrity friend. Probably Billy Zane or Casper van Dien
To be frank, Manson has never been a good stage artist. All live recordings I've seen from him, plus a DVD of his American tour and people I know went to see him, basically came out the same: atrociously bad. I would not go see a live performance of him even if it was free.
But I enjoy all of his studio albums.
Five starts because Depp saves the show just for being cool enough to play on stage.
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